Technical specifications or engineering specifications used in various industries are static documents, typically produced using a word processor. These documents contain numerous references to codes, standards and other specifications. They also contain references to other kinds of documents that are intimately related, such as equipment datasheets, inspection and test requirements, bills of material, and other engineering, procurement, and project management documents. In many cases the main engineering specifications are the governing documents, while the information on other closely related specifications and other intimately related documents becomes out-of-spec because they are treated as separate documents.
It would be desirable if related, similar, and repeated information shared among several documents be electronically tied to the governing specifications. More particularly, it would be desirable if the information was not duplicated at all-that duplicated or related information reside only in the master specifications. More particularly yet, it would be desirable if the various related documents were not additional standalone documents at all, but instead, were alternative views and printouts from metadata contained in the master specifications themselves.